WSR - EREZ ASSET MANAGEMENT OUTLINES SPECIFIC INITIATIVES ITS NOMINEES WILL ADVANCE IF ELECTED TO WHITESTONE REIT BOARD | Benzinga
Whitestone's Inexperienced Board is Responsible for Years of Underperformance Driven by Uneconomic Capital Allocation, Inattentive Financial and Management Oversight, and Retrograde Corporate Governance
Erez's Two Trustee Nominees Have the REIT Capital Markets, Shopping Center, and Public Company Board Experience Necessary to Create Long-Term Value for Whitestone Shareholders
Erez Encourages Whitestone Shareholders to Vote Today "FOR" Catherine Clark and Bruce Schanzer and to "WITHHOLD" from David Taylor and Nandita Berry Using the BLUE Proxy Card
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., May 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Erez Asset Management, LLC ("Erez"), a shareholder of Whitestone REIT (NYSE:WSR) ("Whitestone" or the "Company"), today sent a letter to shareholders urging them to vote immediately to elect Erez's two trustee candidates – Catherine Clark and Bruce Schanzer – to Whitestone's Board of Trustees (the "Board") at the Company's Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which will be held on Tuesday, May 14, 2024.
The full text of the letter is below:
Dear Fellow Whitestone REIT Shareholders:
Whitestone's 2024 Annual Meeting is taking place this coming Tuesday, May 14, and now is your last chance to vote for change. For years, Whitestone has underperformed its potential and its peers. Whitestone's Board does not operate with rigor or excellence and lacks the relevant experience or expertise to ensure Whitestone delivers on its promises. Whitestone missed the specific promises it was to deliver in 2023 regarding lowering G&A and leverage that the Company made in the last contested election in 2018; the management team missed nearly every performance metric in the 2023 compensation plan by a wide mark; and the Company even missed its lowered 2023 earnings guidance after reaffirming that very guidance a month earlier.
These performance challenges are not new and they will not be remedied by the same trustees who created them. In fact, the Company's current trustees are responsible for years of deficient capital allocation decisions that have destroyed significant shareholder value, poor corporate financial management that has resulted in both short-term and long-term guidance misses, and major governance and disclosure failures that have deprived shareholders of a truly independent Board. If you choose to support them, we believe Whitestone will continue to trade at the largest discount to net asset value (NAV), and at the lowest earnings multiple, of any of the shopping center REITs Whitestone cites as its peers.
Alternatively, you can vote for Erez's two highly qualified trustee nominees, who have the REIT capital markets, shopping center, and public company board experience – and the energy, motivation and enthusiasm – necessary to help improve Whitestone for the benefit of all shareholders. If elected, our nominees will promptly pursue the following key initiatives to help resolve the Company's most significant and critical issues:
1. Poor Capital Allocation
a. We will work with management to precisely calculate Whitestone's weighted average cost of capital so it can better ascertain which investments create value and which investments destroy value.
b. We will encourage management to develop an extensive database of relevant transaction activity so that it has a data-driven, ...